Black Terry Jr. has video of La Mascara & LA Park fighting, Rey Escorpion betraying LA Park, and Rey Escorpion talking about being an Ingobernable (again.) The promo tease was Rush vs LA Park, and Rush hanging out with his indie buddies. Rush seems to have a free reign to do things CMLL might not allow others, but it’d be something different if he’s allowed to work many shows with the guys who were fired from CMLL and The Crash guys. That’s definitely the tease, but a show where he simply wrestles LA PArk without some of the usual names is possible. (On the other hand, with how much money “Super Astro” seems to be spending on talent, maybe everything is possible.)

Zavala talked about starting on the indies. Losing to Fresero in his debut suggests he’s not going to be booked in a strong place to start on the indies. Rey Escorpion seems to have gotten the trios spot with Mascara & Maximo instead.

On Konnan’s Podcast Boom, he says Impact wants Aerostar & Drago as LAX’s opponents for Slammiversary on 07/02. Aerostar & Drago are obviously under contract to Lucha Underground. There’s obviously a piece we’re missing here, because that facts don’t make any sense with the information we have and they’re not stupid people. Impact’s not going to put themselves in a position to get a legal threat from Lucha Underground, so AAA (Dorian) must be telling them something to put them at ease. Either AAA is outright lying to Impact (seems unlikely since they’d still want them to work TripleMania) or AAA believes they have some way of getting around their Lucha Underground contracts. Maybe they cover TV but not PPV? Maybe they’ve been violated in some way? There has to be something.

Either way, as much as AAA says they’re behind Lucha Underground, doing things to undermine that show like sending two guys who are meant to be feuding as a team to another TV promotion suggest they may not be as behind it as they claim. It hasn’t happened yet – the story is Jarrett wants those guys, not that they’re the guys who are going – but it’s feels a little shady.

More on that podcast in the lineups.

Lots of shows this weekend, many with Father’s Day promotions or themes. Starting on Saturday

Zapopan (Guadalajara) has a lucha libre festival this weekend. Saturday has an AAA show with Averno, Monster Clown, Murder Clown against Joe Lider, Ricky Marvin and Gronda II as the scheduled main event.

This card does not look as good. Gran Alternativa finalists have usually come back the following week for a trios match, but not so much this year.

Diamante Azul is back this time, maybe. Perhaps CMLL was one week off like with Volador. The semimain looks like the best match on the show. Vangellys/Pierroth will be bad no matter how much they have on it. Sugehit right back on Friday night shows and against Zeuxis – that might be the first time we hear from her on the WWE spot unless media goes to the Sunday show.

Konnan gave this lineup on his latest podcast. I’m guessing there’d be a couple locals matches to get to the usual length, but I’m just guessing that. The upcoming schedule was said to be Mexicali & Puebla in August, Mexico City (Naucalpan) maybe in August, Guadalajara in November and WrestleCon next year. Konnan’s been trying to get a show on WrestleCon back to his last few years in AAA, but the lucha shows have a way of not coming thru every year on that show. Hope this changes it; it’d be easier to do because a lot of The Crash guys figure to be working other shows but more challenging because a lot of what makes The Crash different in Mexico (using those guys for a super indie style) makes them similar to many of the groups running that weekend. Konnan also mentioned he and Roberto Figueroa filmed a TV pilot for The Crash.

Soberano Jr. & Carístico won the 2017 Gran Alternativa, cleanly defeating Sansón & Último Guerrero by taking the last two falls of a spectacular main event.

Gran Guerrero unmasked and humiliated Niebla Roja in the semifinal, at the cost of losing his own match in straight falls. The Guerreros continue to make Niebla Roja pay for his behavior and for wearing the Guerrero mask.

Vangellys fouled Pierroth to defeat him, somewhat getting the best of him two weeks in a row.

CMLL promoted a concert taking place on July 29th harder than they promote most of their shows (and we’ll probably see the ad for the next six weeks.)

Misterioso is making a low key point of unmasking a técnico after every match now. It doesn’t look like he’s getting that Soberano feud, so he’s going to go after everyone.

Thoughts:

Ultimo Guerrero is really strong

This looked like a really strong complete show on paper. It turned into a two match show, but those two matches really delivered.

The main event was all about making Soberano. Último Guerrero was the exact perfect opponent for him, working with him as he had with Mistico and Sombra and another Mistico in the past, making each other look brilliant from their first fall exchange on. Guerrero sold it like he was frustrated by this youngster, and bested by him at the end. Carístico was obviously super motivated by both the spotlight and the outcome, trying to keep up with Soberano’s spectacular moves. Sansón wasn’t given as much in this match – the Copa Junior was a better spotlight for him – but he made the most of what he got to do and didn’t feel out of place. Soberano did everything he needed to do as well as he could do it. CMLL’s gotten behind him in a major way, and he’s shown they made the right call.

Sanson giant springboard plancha

There’s some shakeyness near the end. Sansón & Soberano have a super complicated sequence when seems to end not how it planned. The actual finish of the match seems a little too soon. It’s enough to make me debate which grade to put on it. The idea behind a scale is that an excellent match is that anyone who has interest in wrestling, not just lucha libre, should check the match out. This match has a few flaws but fits that criteria.

Dragon Lee & Cavernario shouldn’t be overlooked. This was not their best match, due a malfunctioning front cracker spot early on and whatever plans they had for apron insanity going awry, but 85% of what they wanted to do is still pretty exciting. It got better as they want along, and Dragon Lee seems like he’s picked up a few tricks from Japan that he’s just waiting to try out: the rolling slam into a moonsault into a Spanish Fly was new for Arena Mexico. This was oe where the time limit draw would’ve been an acceptable finish, but at least we’ll get a few more minutes of them in upcoming matches.

The rest of the show had some low moments. The semimain just wasn’t much, a hurried match just to re-enforce the storyline. It might have been cut short because other things went long. The Pierroth/Vangellys match very visibly derailed for a while; I think people were out of position for the comeback spot and it took about two minutes of talking and standing around to get them where they wanted. The rest of the match was not good. It’s a testament to how hot the crowd was for the show that this they survived one of the worst matches of the year without really being hurt for the rest of the show. The second match was missing a lot of the usual rhythm and crispness with that group of guys. Only half the opener aired on the stream, but what we saw included Sangre Imperial screwing something up badly and/or Virus sabotaging him, so I don’t think we missed all that much.